The field of this invention relates to a method of producing a food in the form of a yogurt spread which has the appearance, texture, taste and viscosity of conventional cream cheese, but has a fat content, cholesterol and calories for below that of conventional cream cheese.
Within a recent report of the United States Surgeon General, there was a conclusion manifested that one million two hundred thousand deaths within the United States each year are diet related. There are three principle culprits responsible for these deaths and these are high fat, high calories and high cholesterol. A common food in the United States is cream cheese. Cream cheese has thirty-four percent fat, one hundred calories per ounce and one hundred milligrams of cholesterol for each one hundred grams. Cream cheese is the type of product which is high in all three undersirable culprits.
Food researchers in the past few years have made a concerted effort in developing food products which are nutritious, palatable and which contain reduced levels of calories, cholesterol and fat. Examples of each products that are now being marketed successfully are yogurt and skim milk. The diet consciousness of people has resulted in over four billion dollers in annual sales of yogurt within the United States in 1988. In 1967, there was only about twenty five million dollars in annual sales of yogurt.
Previously, the present inventor obtained a U.S. Pat. No. 4,434,184 entitled "YOGURT SPREAD RESEMBLING CREAM CHEESE". The method within this patent ended with the centrifuging step to remove whey. Yogurt whey is quite acidic. Most municipalities prohibit the discharging of yogurt whey directly into a sewer system. Therefore, special procedures have to be taken to dispose of this waste product. Also, within the aforesaid patent, it was required to use special equipment such as a centrifuge, special filter or reverse osmosis equipment to produce the yogurt whey. It would be most desirable if yogurt could be produced without utilizing the step of centrifuging, ultra-filtration or reverse osmosis and also which eliminated the producing of the yogurt whey.